Solitary
by Suilven
Summary: A dark look at Anders' year of solitary confinement within the Circle Tower.


**Solitary**

_Warning: Dark. Very dark._

__This story is also meant as an answer to the Cheeky Monkey 100 word challenge:__

__Capture the moment of your choosing-no restrictions on character choice, DA:O, DA:A, DA2, romance, humor, whatever you like. But, it must be 100 words exactly (not including the title if you choose to include one), no more and no less.__

__Each of the segments below is exactly 100 words.__

__Oh, did I mention dark?__

* * *

><p><strong>Month 1:<strong>

He rages until his voice is hoarse, pounding the door with his fists. If only there was something to break… but they've left nothing; just a pallet that reeks of cold mildew and a bucket to relieve himself in. When his arms grow tired, he throws his whole body against the walls.

It makes no difference.

No one comes.

He tries magic, too, but everything dissipates into the wards they've placed on the walls, the door, the impossibly high window. He casts anyway—lightning, fire, ice—until he is panting and empty.

He finally staggers to the pallet and collapses.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 2:<strong>

Sitting by the door, he waits for the footsteps. He forces himself to stay perfectly still, his breath slow and even. They will come soon. The spot of light from the window has just crossed the eighth brick on the opposite wall.

Metal steps echo outside and he sits up straighter. The opening at the bottom of the door swings forward and a tray is pushed inside. Ignoring the way his stomach clenches, he shoves it back before the opening can close.

The next day, there are no footsteps.

Or, the next.

When they come again, he takes the tray.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 3:<strong>

The silence is thick and heavy, a fog that never lifts. He talks to himself as he paces, he sings. Every song he can remember, every poem, every scrap of conversation—anything to drive back the oppressive emptiness. He knows the gentle scuff that his feet make on the stone as well as his own heartbeat.

When he stops, the walls seem to creep in closer, choking him, crushing him beneath their weight.

"Maker, though the darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm. I shall endure," he whispers.

The walls recede once more.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 4:<strong>

The demons are getting closer. When he enters the Fade, they are always circling, brushing up against his skin with silken fingers. When they whisper in his ear, he can almost feel the warmth of their breath.

_Freedom._

_Justice._

_Vengeance._

He can have it all, if he just lets them in.

_You won't be alone. You'll have us._

He wants to give in, but he can't. He won't.

_You will. We will wait for you._

A fingertip slides along his cheek and he wakes with a strangled gasp.

They lie. He knows they always lie. But, he wants to believe.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 5:<strong>

Each day, he thinks of something they cannot take from him.

Today, it is the memory of snow. He closes his eyes and pictures the blurring constellations of flakes cascading down from the sky. Looking up is like looking into a whirlpool of stars, making him dizzy and disoriented, while fluffy flecks melt on his eyelashes. The people in that village must have thought him crazy, standing there in the middle of the road, his arms outstretched in the middle of that unfathomable beauty.

He opens his eyes, and then shuts them again.

Behind his closed lids, the snowflakes fall.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 6:<strong>

He doesn't want to give in to the despair that's been lapping at his feet like the cold water on the shore of the lake, but it's impossible. The fear seeps into his bones until he's so frightened that his breath comes in uncontrolled gulps.

He can't do this.

It's too hard.

He scratches his name in the worn stone beside his pallet, craving some small sense of permanence; he doesn't want to be forgotten. At night, he runs his fingers over the letters, making them glow.

He was here.

He has always been here.

There is nothing but here.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 7:<strong>

He paces back and forth in the small room. It takes nine steps when he goes the short way, twelve when he goes the long way.

There are five hundred and ninety-two bricks in the largest wall. There are five hundred and twenty-two bricks in the smallest wall, the one with the window.

There is a discolored spot on the stone near the door that looks vaguely like a dog. Sometimes, he swears it turns its head to look at him. Once, he thought it barked.

He has been here for one hundred and eighty-nine days.

He is going mad.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 8:<strong>

He wonders if Irving feels guilty; if he lies awake at night, thinking about him…

He hopes so.

A burning hatred is growing, an ember that is now a conflagration. He's begun beating helplessly on the walls again.

The templars and their self-righteous shit.

Irving, who never gave a fuck about what they did to him.

Greagoir, who'd always whispered as he whipped him that 'he was only trying to help him find the light.'

The other mages and apprentices, happily going about their business while he rotted away up here.

His fists are covered in blood.

Fuck them all.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 9:<strong>

The demons are getting louder, stronger, bolder. They no longer circle, but perch on his shoulders like vultures waiting for their meal to realize the futility of continuing to move.

_We can make you so much more. Don't you _want_ to be free?_

He mutters over and over that they're lying—they always lie—but it's getting harder to shut them out. They tantalize him with images of life outside, of slaughtered templars, of power. His willpower is nothing but a brittle tendril of hope that _someday_ they will let him out.

He wakes.

Another day, just like the last.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 10:<strong>

He lies on his pallet and watches the spot of light inch across the stone, not rising until the tray is pushed through the opening in the door. He eats woodenly and then lies down once more until the light has escaped this place and there is only darkness. He could conjure a flame, but there's no point.

There is no hope.

The blackness is absolute.

The clink of a plate makes him sit up so quickly that his head hurts. He nearly screams when something touches his leg.

A paw?

As the cat climbs into his lap, he weeps.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 11:<strong>

The cat comes every night on padded feet; he doesn't question how she's getting in. All that matters is that she comes.

He is inexplicably alive again, conjuring wisps of colored lights for his friend to chase. The cat overreaches, tumbling face first into the floor with a displeased yowl as the wisp winks away. Scooping her up into his arms, he presses his face into the cat's side, feeling the rumble of the deep-throated purr, the tickle of whiskers on his nose. The cat bats at him playfully.

For the first time in what feels like forever, he laughs.

* * *

><p><strong>Month 12:<strong>

The cat doesn't come. He stays up all night by the door, waiting. The next night passes much the same.

_No._

_Please._

If the Maker had any sense of mercy at all, He wouldn't take her away from him. Maybe he's cursed after all.

He doesn't move from his position by the door—he barely sleeps now anyway, so what fucking difference does it make? He wonders what it will feel like, to stop his own heart. Will he be able to maintain the spell long enough to end it?

He's so very tired.

The door suddenly opens, blinding him.

* * *

><p><strong>Afterward:<strong>

The light is too bright, the people too loud. He's traded one prison for another, but at least he can bathe, eat, and read. There is a cat at the end of his bed, always.

The other mages avoid him, and he's more than happy to be left alone; he can still smile enough to get laid. As he pretends that everything is fine, he can feel Irving and Greagoir watching him with pity he doesn't want.

They think they've won, that they've damaged him enough that he knows his place.

He does know his place.

It's anywhere but here.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I really don't know why my big box o'plot bunnies has been so dark and angst-ridden lately. I solemnly promise that my next one-shot will be so sweet and fluffy (and possibly smutty) that your teeth will rot. ;)_


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